


The Burly Axegrinder

by primsong



Category: Lord of the Rings - Fandom
Genre: Action/Adventure, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-02
Updated: 2010-10-02
Packaged: 2017-10-12 08:43:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primsong/pseuds/primsong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gimli and that great pursuit across the plains to Rohan, set to verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Burly Axegrinder

**Author's Note:**

> _An attempt at the patterning of Tolkien's poem "Errantry", for Gimli._

**The Burly Axegrinder**

There was a burly axegrinder,

A taxminder, a warrior

He sought some Orcs whose passengers

Were passing for some couriers,

Although they were no carriers,

No ferriers of frippery,

No Ring of heavy golden shine

Beholden midst their livery.

.

The Orcs ploughed through topography

No pause to breathe, so tauntingly

They hauled their prey potato-sacked

And cracked their whips most constantly

The Hunters three, persistantly

(Consistent in their tracking feat)

A leaf of Lorien they found,

All pounded down in loam and peat.

.

The Dwarf revelled in runabout,

This turnabout of who's pursued.

With friends he tracked, and puffing far

For ruffians whose spoils accrued

His feet pumped on through grassy plains,

Swift passage, leagues of gasping toil

To reclaim both lest handling rough

Should shuffle off their mortal coil.

.

There came a troop of Horseriders

Their course beside the selfsame track

With hoof and spear they hemmed them in

By pennant green they waved them back.

Pressed in and questioned to confess

They jested not, stared merciless

As those who know betrayal's jess

And hood would fail their hawkeyed test.

.

The Dwarf he gave a measured glace

At dancing hoof and sharpened lance

With his companions looking on

He forsook all courtly variance;

To their alarm he challenged them,

And malleable his enmity

By whether they'd free passage trade:

Give Lady's due, or penalty!

.

Eomer gave an answer swift

A gift of passage through the land

But challenge of the Lady's grace...

Through facing dwarvish axe at hand,

He'd not agree that golden nets

Weren't waiting yet in wooded cove.

Though they'd slaughtered Orcs, and "child"less

They'd piled the mess on flaming stove.

.

With a growling overture,

The Dwarf turned back from man and horse

To seek again his Halflings' fate

With unabating dwarvish force

And barring any sophistory

In history to find his place down

Underneath his braided beard,

Unfearing grin upon his face.


End file.
